Possibility - Requires tech support

[Raveen]

The Old World Football League use custom software to play Direct IP games with team creation and tracking done server side (I think).

If I'm reading things right we could set up a server using their software - http://www.shalkith.com/bloodbowl/forum ... =13&t=1075

Improvements - All races available, All Stars Available, Direct IP might be more stable than Cyanide's servers, Direct IP might be the only option once BB2 is out depending on what Cyanide do with their servers.

Anyone willing to do the technical work to see if this is something we want to try?

[notjarvis]

Just registered for the forum, and in the first few forum posts I read it talks of a BBManager like app that's online, but just playing in the normal BB online client in the Auld World (but I dunno if that's their old way of doing it).

Not sure if I've found the Direct IP stuff yet. Will take a look again later..


Would be awesome if we could get something like that running.

[Raveen]

You're a coder, get to it...

[notjarvis]

pfft.

I'm a mediocre coder with an enormous workload :-)

[id3nt1ty]

nj is right, I think. They play in the normal client, but track teams through their online team tracking things that seems to work similarly to bbm. I think they either play a PuG using the Auld world league for matchmaking, or can do Direct IP games for leagues.

[Raveen]

Check this thread, it details how their software works - http://www.shalkith.com/bloodbowl/forum ... f=22&t=424

[id3nt1ty]

That's a lot of details!

It would be interesting to see if we can get a simple version going. What things do you like about it Rav?

[Raveen]

The star players mostly - there's a big gap in the Cyanide version there. Also we'd have more opportunities to make sure disconnects don't adversely affect anyone because we could game in MVPs etc.

Insurance against the servers going down wouldn't hurt either.

[lawastooshort]

Oh the star players would be very good for some teams... I'd be willing to do a minor bit of faffing to be able to play this.

[Gandalf]

So these star players.... I'm assuming they are available in single player but not multi-player? If so did cyanide ever give an explanation for why they aren't in multi-player?

[Raveen]

Nope, they're not in the video game at all.

I don't think a reason has ever been given but it's going to be down to the time required to make the models.

In the TT game each team has 6 stars available. Usually that's Morg (or Ramtut) and 5 others which may overlap with other teams (so Wilhelm Chaney plays for Humans, Norse and Necro). All in all there are 56 stars iirc.

Cyanide cut that down to 2 per team, one of which is Morg/Ramtut. As they tend to have included the more expensive stars there's not much opportunity to induce star players unless you're totally outmatched.

OFL have included the stars by using top level models of the appropriate position as a best approximation (so Hthark the Unstoppable presumably looks like a lvl 6 Bull Centaur). I'm not sure how they've worked chainsaws in but they're often cheaper stars and would be good picks against low armour teams (elves, Khorne etc).

[lawastooshort]

Some teams which might include Underworld for example would quite benefit from a wide range of star players, rather than having options at 60k and 430k...

[Gandalf]

OK... so it's still the Cyanide blood bowl game but modded to include the extra stars?

NB I think some teams have 3... Ogres had Morg, pgoo stick guy and self-destruct bomber guy.

But yeah I'm quite taken by some of the stars available in the rules.

[id3nt1ty]

It's still Cyanide Blood Bowl, but with some mods. I think there is a mod pack download in one of those links. They do all their team management in their website and then download the team files to play over LAN/Direct IP. I'm not sure if this includes the induced star players, or whether they have just figured out how to add players to the player lists. It would be interesting if they've done the latter, because it wouldn't be hard for us to do the same.

[Raveen]

As I understand it, when you play a Direct IP game you can build your team from scratch or use a SP team. What their software does is manage the team and then generate a file that contains the roster for your next game, including inducements and stars, which you then choose for the game.