Multiplayer and HTML user interface

[RazorBlade]

Okay, this has been my dream for a long time but it is not in any flightsims that I know of. Therefore I have to explain it instead of pointing to one specific some and saying I want something similar.

I think many of you are part of an online squadron or at least you have visited an online squadron’s website. Many of these squadrons have a training program, a chat room, a forum, a roster and if you are lucky they have a flight schedule. The interaction between the flightsim and the squadron website is however very minimal. What I would like to see is far more interactivity between the flightsim and the squadrons website. Let me give a few examples:

When I am in the squadrons mission schedule on their website then I want to click on a flight and automatically download the mission to my flightsim and jump in the seat of the plane. At the same time I should make automatically contact with the other people who are also joining that flight. In Falcon, I first have to contact everybody to see who has the fastest connection, then we have to exchange IP numbers, we have to optimize our bandwidth settings, we have to commit with a few seconds spacing, etc. This all could be done automatically by clicking a link on a website.

The sound should work also with a web interface. It is really great to see how internal voice works in Falcon because it adds extra realism to the flightsims to operate the radio in the cockpit, but it does not work without Falcon. It would be great if you could use the voice chat and operate it with from a website and seamless use it in flight as well.

Ideally, a standard squadron website should be included on the CD and that standard squadron website should have a lot of interactivity with the flightsim. Multiplayer has everything to do with communication over a network and the best possible interface to use over a network is a website. It is also a very good advertisement and community building tool when everybody can simply install a Fighter Ops website and adapt it to his own style. Think about a PHP-Nuke like website, specially designed as a squadron website with a lot of interactivity with the flightsims.

[Charlie_VFP]

This actually does sound like it has promise.

I think that an HTML interface would be a bit hard. You would have to port an awful lot of data to and from the webserver and such all in real time.

I think a good solution would be to have a third party, external, software that handles this. It would obviously need to be based on a server in which each client could interact with.

Example: Hyperlobby

But instead of being a straight "game finder" service, it would store all the information like he said above. Port data out of it so that when you enter a room, the mission files are sent, your TeamSpeak / RogerWilco / Whatever cliet auto connects to the squads server, ect.

I think the big thing for HTML is that when you end a mission, the game will automatically format the mission stats to HTML and save it to a directory of your choice. Then you can just upload it to a webserver and the whole squad can see how it went.

[Vlerkies]

I agree with Terry. It can be hard but it has huge advantages
:drink:


:military:
~S~

[Bladehawk]

its hard but not impossible...

[Vlerkies]

That's also very very true Bladehawk :drink:

:military:
~S~

[Charlie_VFP]

Nothing is impossible. It just takes a lot of time, some hard work, and a ton of headaches!

[JDFire]

That would be great. When I get out of College (Studying Network security and Cisco). That I could help you with the security and back end systems to run the servers and stuff like that on. I will get back with you all in about 3 years or so about hooking all this up if you havn't done it already. This sounds like this would bring a lot of people togeather. Just look at diablo and games alike. They kinda have that same thing but not the website integration stuff. I think it can be done as well. I hope this will go forward.

[BlackAce]

that would be a great feature, and unique one too!

[RazorBlade]

I get the feeling that some people here don’t completely understand what I mean. Let me explain it a bit better.

I think most of you know the program “Team Speak 2”. When you installed TS2 you can create your own hyperlink and in that hyperlink you can include several parameters. If you would click on that hyperlink in your browser, TS2 will startup and use the parameters in that hyperlink to connect to the right TS2 server with the correct username and password. So basically the parameters in the hyperlink are used as a sort of command lines to start up the program.

How could you use such a system in a flightsims? Well you create hyperlinks that startup the flightsim with certain parameters. Let me give several examples of parameters that could be nice to include in the hyperlink so your flightsims starts-up the way you want it:

Parameters:
- IP address of the buddy you want to fly with.
- URL where the flightsim can download a squadron specific tail art.
- URL where the flightsim can download a datafile with a squadron specific setup.
- URL where the flightsim can download the mission (TE in Falcon).

When the mission is flown, the flightsims can automatically upload the mission results to the squadron’s website so it can be included in the pilots squadron logbook. The website can show then squadron statistics but also individual pilot scores.

Also keep in mind that programming a good squadron website is a huge amount of work. It would be very nice if such a website is included with the sim so everybody can start his own online squadron. So you don’t have to be a webdeveloper to program such a website but you can simply upload the website to a webserver and you edit it with your own logos, rules etc and you are good to go.

[Buckshot]

Yep I understand what you are saying Razorblade, shouldn't be *too* much drama to have it export that data, of course nothing can be promised at this stage, but I can certainly have it looked into.