Massgate – The central server for the game World in Conflict | Hacker News Reader

Massgate – The central server for the game World in Conflict

github.com

118 pointsSytten41 comments

I work at Massive (The now Ubisoft owned studio that developed world in conflict) and everyone is super happy to have this work available to everyone. It was sad when we had to shut the systems down before we shipped The Division. They were not well supported to be fair but I am proud of precedent Ubisoft is setting (or at least allowing) in open sourcing old game components (or; current systems like sharpmake)

Just dont assume much of _this_ is relevant now. I recognise names but there is nothing in Massive developed today that looks like this. :/

Just wanted to say how happy I am with the state of The Division right now. 1.8 is great! Sorry to be off topic but TCTD is a case study in how to refine a game post launch and I think you all should get credit for that. It's my most played non MMO title and has helped scratch the looter shooter itch after a certain competing product didn't work out as expected.

Please make another one ;)

I'd just like to say thank you for making a great game! World in conflict always stood out to me as a favorite, and I really enjoyed how fast paced it was.

I was a big fan of World in Conflict back when it came out. Great take on the RTS genre! Between this and Freedom Fighters we had a fun look at ‘what if’ the Cold War heated up.

I’ve never played The Division as I’ve not much interest in (or time for) MMO style games. I presume this trend of connected gaming and associated increased monetisation is going to continue as development costs increase at the expense of the single player experiences of yore.

Just chiming in that The Division isn't a typical MMO and much of the game can be played solo or in a small matchmaking group.

It's on sale now and worth a try! I'd happily show you (or anyone else reading this) around.

Yup; The Division is err, a 3rd person shooter with a Diablo-style loot / gear system, along with online functionality like co-op missions and an optional pvp area.

Oh man, Freedom Fighters was great. I wish we had a sequel but IO Interactive never seemed interested in revisiting that IP.

Do you know what's going to happen to the rest of World in Conflict's code ? Shelved forever on a couple hard drives, then forgotten and lost ? Or is there any hope of seeing more of it ? I've got great memories of playing multiplayer with friends, and it would be really cool to dive into it again, but with more knowledge of the source and gameplay. I'd love to be able to mod it :)

Thank you for making one of my favourite games of all time. I replay the single player campaign every year.

I love this banned string: https://github.com/ubisoftinc/massgate/blob/1bacdde1faec7ed1...

Why are "developer", "moderator", "server", "massive" (the developer), and "worldinconflict" banned?

These words are banned to be used as user and server names, not in the chat. Look at the three booleans that precede each of the strings.

Banned in nicknames, not chat - so people don't pretend to be an official representative of the developer, obviously.

The game itself is free this week https://freetrial.ubisoft.com/promotions/wic/12

Awesome, just registered it. Now to make a docker container that runs this...

are there reasons to get it from ubisoft giveaway, if you have it already on gog (or steam)?

Not really.

There is a small case to be made in hedging against storefront shutdowns by getting free copies as much as possible on as many storefronts as possible. UPlay being the publisher's own storefront presumably has a different risk assessment for shutdown than GOG or Steam. (By that logic, I love GOG Connect for a small hedge of Steam purchases, and many of my Steam purchases in the last five or six years have been Humble Bundle or Humble Store for a similar reason.)

I'm relatively new to C++, is this style common? I refer to, for example, putting the return of function on a separate line from the name and each of the passed parameters on a separate line as well.

For C++, I subscribe to Google style. It addresses this.

https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html#Function_D...

Geez how does anyone remember all of that...

Your linter remembers for you.

Indeed, the very best kind of coding convention is the automated and enforced kind. Prevents a lot of arguing, leaving more time to argue about the code's actual contents.

That’s a core challenge of writing code in a language as large and complicated and dangerous and rewarding as cpp.

There is no common style in C or C++. This is a free for all area, even with clang format.

World In Conflict was a near perfect game! Multiplayer made for fast casual games, that you could leave anytime and another player would replace you. So it didn't interfere with real life. Always wish a sequel had come out.

Ubisoft just got a lot more respect from me. I wish more game developers did this.

Not sure if this is made clear but the source code they released only manages rankings, chat rooms and players.

There's still the dedicated game server software that is closed. Imo most aspiring game developers would be more interested by the game code than the administrative code that was released.

Any potentially reusable infrastructure is better than none to an aspiring game developer, I would hope.

For one thing, it's amazing how many incompatible chat room systems have been developed by game developers over the years. Some have been smart enough to build on IRC protocols or Jabber protocols and/or servers as a leg up, and I would hope some are looking at options like Matrix today. I've not glanced deep enough if this server is as good an option as those others, but it's still a better option than "roll your own".

Whatever the choice, the fewer game developers that need to reinvent a chat server every (other) game, the more time they can spend on less "administrative" code.

Sure Slack started as "yet another game chat system" before it was decided that the chatroom product was better than the game and a pivot cemented that. But for every Slack there's probably easily a dozen developers that got bogged down in administrative projects, never launched, and never found a way to usefully pivot one of those administrative projects.

After all the deadlines and last-minute changes, most of game code is not something you want to make public. Especially with your name under it.

Why not? Who cares if the code looks like crap? If it is fun and can help people who still want to play the games create their own servers / communities after the game devs have shut it down it shouldn't really matter.

Your point holds only if we assume that in the future, all people that will be hiring you are very clever and perfectly rational.

This is fantastic. Thanks Massive/Ubisoft.

I never played World in Conflict much (though I do have it), but I was a big fan of Ground Control (arguably the pre-predecessor of World in Conflict).

It was basically my first online game. The feeling of that small community is something I remember fondly to this day. I remember one the members of my clan (The Initiative) always correcting me as my 13 year old self made many a grammar mistake; I'm not a native speaker. That, and many other things, have been formative to me.

Some part of me would truly enjoy seeing the server infrastructure for Ground Control open-sourced as well. Though of course I consider it possible parts of that were controlled by the now-defunct WoN (World Opponent Network) [1].

Thanks for all the fun.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Opponent_Network

You may be the first person I've ever 'met' that knows about Ground Control!

I didn't play the first, but I remember putting GC2 on an under-powered laptop and playing for hours at 5fps! Pretty sure that game is the reason I need prescription glasses now.

I remember playing GC1 on a 300Mhz celeron with everything turned down. Needless to say, anything but the easiest single players missions were murder. It ran like a dream on an AMD Athlon 700 with an ATI Radeon 9000 though, when I finally scrounged up enough cash to buy it. GC2 was too different from GC1 in terms of gameplay mechanics for me to truly enjoy it, but I did finish the single player campaign, messed around with online (only a few matches) and attempted to make an old-style Ground Control map. That was released but I don't think it ever amounted to anything.

So I bet releasing the game server code is actually impossible since it's tight to third party framework like Havok?

This is the game server code...

Is it? This looks like "just" the matchmaking service.

From the README:

> The dedicated game server is called Wic_ds.exe and is included in the distribution of the game. It is installed by Uplay upon download.

Nope it's just rankings, chats, player management. The dedicated game server is still closed.

They essentially released an administrative meta-tool for wic game servers.

company of heroes is better than wic by far

Context: It is one of the banned strings in chat

https://github.com/ubisoftinc/massgate/blob/1bacdde1faec7ed1...

For somebody who also have no life (like me):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_of_Heroes

Reply on news.ycombinator.com