Multiplayer?

[VladP17]

Can someone tell me how far the multiplayer part of Open TTD has developed already?
I was also wondering if the multiplayer will be like on LAN, IPX, TCP/IP, or will there be a browser for the games already started online?

[Bouke]

Please read some stickies which will explain how to get networking. A browser for online games would be nice but some people think this would cost too much (to have a central server). Maybe some "p2p-networking" instead of a server?

[VladP17]

can u give me a link to one of the stickies? I don't have that much time to search for them

P2P would be nice

[Bouke]

http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=7891

[Zooz]

P2P = everyone with router can't play :/

[lucaspiller]

You probably would have saved more time by looking at the stickies. They are sticky so you don't need to search for them.

Anyway at the moment there isn't a browser for the games but dominik81 is working on one - it looks quite good but the colours need to be a bit more OTTDish.

[VladP17]

Im in Linux and this is my question now.

Will i always have to type "-n xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" or will there be an auto switch in the game later on? so that i launch "TTD" command and then press 2 player there? And what about the online game browser? will i have to launch it from the Terminal via another command like "TTD -something" to launch it?

[thorkia]

P2P = everyone with router can't play :/

Zooz, why don't you just set your router up to allow port pass thru for the P2P ports? It isn't that hard if your using a Cisco ro Linksys router.

[TBOT]

...
A browser for online games would be nice but some people think this would cost too much (to have a central server). Maybe some "p2p-networking" instead of a server?

Something ppl don't seem to realise is that p2p-networking also requires a central server from which clients get their initial 'seed' (in the form of IP's of other connected clients). Real p2p-networking hasn't been done yet, mainly due to the current infrastructure of the internet.
The striking difference however lies in the load the server has to deal with. A central server would have to manage all traffic (for whatever purpose it may have). In p2p the central server only gives out IP's, which you can imagine is quite a smaller load.

There are two things however I think you should consider.
First, is there really a need for a server browser?
If we were talking about a fast-paced action game with relatively short game length the answer would be simply 'yes'.
But OpenTTD is just the opposite of that. Short games don't come near the fun you would get from long games where all players compete with large networks. Internet gaming is not really suitable for this. Sure, you can join a game which you've found with this browser, and you can play for a while, but at a certain moment someone has to stop. How do you manage to continue the game, with a person you barely know, and with whom you most of the time cannot plan to meet again, all through this browser?

Onto the second point, say you would want to implement the browser. As said, a central server isn't really feasible. But why consider p2p? It keeps the load of the central server, making it a bit more feasible. On the other hand there would be a major piece of work in the network infrastructure, which surely isn't easy. And why keep a p2p network alive, for the sole purpose of finding games?

Having dealt with the ideas given, I'll propose the idea I have about it.
A browser would be useful for LAN games (with servers announcing themselfs via broadcasts). Internet games just won't have the outlook of lasting long enough to make up for the work it takes to implement an internet game browser.
And if you really want to hook up with other players to play over the internet, I guess a topic or forum dedicated to it would be just the solution.