[jdev] [Standards] Using Jabber in a KDE game

[Guenther Niess]

Hello Klaeg,

Kleag wrote:
> New to this list, I'm the author of KsirK, a KDE strategy game. Currently its 
> net game uses pure TCP/IP. One player start its game by setting a port on 
> which to listen to and the others connect to this port. Then the 
> libkdegames/kgame library is used to communicate. This lib as all what is 
> necessary to exchange messages including Qt objects. It also have a chat 
> framework. KsirK is a multiplayer game with, currently, does not allow passive 
> not playing participants.
> 
> Jabber seems to be a largely better solution. I want to have a very few 
> centralized system, keeping one client as the game server and using the 
> communication framework only for that: a communication tool. I'm also not 
> interested in controling cheating, basing the game in trust.
> 
> So, my idea is to progressively switch to Jabber. In a first step, it would 
> just allow to publish a proposed game in a kind of chat room and then the 
> current communication system would be used. In a second step, xmpp would also 
> be used to exchange game data.

For the first step you can use the service discovery (XEP-0030) and the
multi-user chat (XEP-0045).
Further on we suggest to use our multi-user gaming proposal [1] but this 
is still in development. This approach needs a server implementation for
the multi-user chat as well as for the game.  I'm currently working on a 
server plugin for openfire and would offer to support your efforts. 

It's also possible to integrate a small chat and gameserver in your game 
client implementation.

> I must admit that, even if Jabber seems promising, I'm a little bit lost in 
> all the specifications and I don't know how to start implementing. I had a 
> look to the recent thread (january and june) about the proposed Games XEPs and 
> it seems promising for me. 

As aforementioned I think to look for XEP-0030 and XEP-0045 would be a
good start.

> I will also contact the thelepathy and kopete teams as there are more related 
> to KDE, but I'd like to have your opinion and advices about my ideas. I could 
> describe them with more details, but I'm very not at ease with the underlying 
> concepts and I don't want to say right now too silly things :-)

We are interested in your thoughts and maybe upcoming problems.

Best regards

Guenther

[1] http://pidgin-games.sourceforge.net/xep/multi-user_gaming.html