Re: [Ayatana] "Games"-application idea

2011/5/5 Mathieu Comandon <strycore@xxxxxxxxx>

Hello there, joining the conversation.

It seems that this thread is closely related to the project I started working on a year and a half ago, Lutris ( http://lutris.net ).
For the moment I've only implemented what I call 'runners' for a bunch of emulators and whatever program that can run games. My first goal is to provide a perfect gaming experience, providing fixes for common problems such as fullscreen or sound issues.
I've also started on game installaters which are basically a YAML files describing the way the game should be installed. ( there's an early draft of the specs here : http://lutris.net/wiki/index.php/Writing_Lutris_installers )

Then comes all the stuff you are talking about and that I haven't started implementing yet (but it's planned) :
- A contact list, with the possibility to join a friend in a network game
- Synchronization of game saves in the cloud
- Game stats (Number of hours played, etc...)

Most of this stuff would be done on the server, I've done work on the website but it's still at a very early stage and not useful at all. The sourcecode for the server has not been released yet but it will, eventually (it's a Django project).

Bear in mind that I haven't found anyone to help hacking on the project so the development is very slow but I have made everything possible to ease contribution : there's a Wiki ( http://lutris.net/wiki ), a blog ( http://www.lutris.net/blog/ ), an IRC channel ( #lutris on Freenode ), a launchpad project with a bzr branch and a bugtracker ( https://launchpad.net/lutris ).

Please keep Lutris in mind when thinking about providing a good gaming experience in Ubuntu ;)

Cheers, Mathieu

On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 7:59 PM, Niklas Rosenqvist <niklas.s.rosenqvist@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

If it could be installed as a plugin to empathy and if the applications using the API could detect if the plugin is installed and if not have fallback method then I guess it could be integrated nicely. But I think that most important is to get the games application itself to work with save game synchronization and other meta data such as Ubuntu Software Center rating. Then afterwards I would gladly see it implemented with an API for games to use empathy and other software. But the games application shouldn't necessarily depend on the developers for integrating these functions. It should be able to work as a standalone application with information on where the games available in the software center saves it's data and with a growing list for other games, which also could be configured by the user, by manually pointing to the directory where they reside.

How about that?

2011/5/3 Shane Fagan <shanepatrickfagan@xxxxxxxxxx>

Well the idea was an interesting idea and pretty attainable in terms
of what we have to work with.

So the social features are all done with Empathy/Telepathy so the
developers would be able to plug in to this API that is already there
for this (in 99% sure its a dbus call or something to do it). More
advanced features like allowing users to join games or install games
from the software center by clicking a link in empathy would require a
little bit of code in empathy itself to work but not too much.

The idea itself shouldn't add too much to the default Ubuntu install
the only thing that might add a lot is adding mumble to empathy which
would be awesome even for non gamers. I don't really agree with the
term hardcore gamers since the developers of both styles of games
should be able to use the APIs on offer in the same ways and get equal
great user experiences from it.

Saving games to u1 is easy to do you can either sync the folder or you
can use desktop couch and sync the table so thats easy and if you send
any developer to #ubuntuone on freenode we can help it out. Between
devices is interesting because we do have a file sync for android and
it is being improved at the moment so ill have to say maybe on the
devices comment. On windows if the developer uses the same config or
save files you could even work there too (on the new windows client in
development, soonish release but not near ready yet).

Videos in the software center is something ive wanted for a while. It
would take some effort to set up though so I wont try to speculate on
it. Id love to have trailers and gameplay videos though since thats
what people base their buying decisions on when buying games. The
interesting thing would be how to do this. Streaming is always a
sticky issue.

--fagan

On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 4:43 PM, Niklas Rosenqvist

<niklas.s.rosenqvist@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Sorry If I accidentally sends this twice. I had some problem when sending it
> the first time so here goes:
> Thanks for the contribution Shane! What I understand from your blueprint is
> that you guys were designing a "games application" with social community
> features like Steam or Desura. This would make it a fairly big project and I
> think that it might be too big for something that could ship as standard in
> Ubuntu. What I want from this idea is that it should be an easy to use and
> lightweight application which all users could make use of not only the
> hardcore gamers, even the ones just playing mines and mahjong. As Desura is
> coming to Linux I think that need will be met. But there were a bunch of
> really great ideas in your blueprint and I think that there was one that was
> exceptional:
> Save game synchronization! It would be great to be able to integrate the
> application with Ubuntu One so that the saves can be synchronized (and
> backed up) between devices! This is a feature I think that many would
> appreciate. Maybe even high scores and such can be synced.
> Also the possibility of adding videos to games in Software Center is an
> interesting idea. But it presents itself with a bunch of problems: Would
> only trailers be allowed or also explanatory videos? Should there be a
> quality standard? Should only games be allowed to have videos or regular
> applications as well? I think it is a good idea but one that requires a lot
> of thought and design, maybe it should wait for a later iteration of
> Ubuntu...
> Please continue the discussion :)
> I think I will try make a mockup of such an application. Don't know when I
> will have time though...
> 2011/5/3 Shane Fagan <shanepatrickfagan@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>
>> On this entire thread I had a blueprint at the last UDS talking about
>> how to improve the gaming experience on Ubuntu and it got some
>> interesting responses although we didn't really do anything in the end
>> with it but we came up with a list of things that we could do in the
>> future and I think that was good. I cant remember the link to the
>> outcome but the original ideas (a big brain dump really) was
>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GamesIntegration take with it what you will.
>>
>> --fagan
>>
>> On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 3:06 PM, Niklas Rosenqvist
>> <niklas.s.rosenqvist@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> > I think it would be used rather extensively since most people don't want
>> > to
>> > put all their games in the launcher since it clutters it completely and
>> > I
>> > atleast don't want to have to search for them everytime I want to find a
>> > game. I guess it's the feeling of well organised content that appeals
>> > most.
>> > This would also simplify the whole process by having one launcher for
>> > all
>> > your games and even provide meta data.
>> >
>> > Regular Steam users tend to (from my experience) put all their games in
>> > their steam launcher to make them easily accessible. On my windows
>> > partition
>> > I only have one icon for all my games and that is Steam. It makes the
>> > whole
>> > thing fast and easy. Most importantly, as I stated before, it would
>> > encourage gaming on Ubuntu.
>> > I believe that instead of just dismissing the gaming situation on linux
>> > as
>> > "Developers will never focus on us since they don't have market here"
>> > and
>> > settle for having it as an office workstation we should make it as gamer
>> > friendly we can! Because if we get the gamers to Ubuntu, we also get the
>> > hardware vendors to create good drivers.
>> > 2011/5/3 James Gifford <james@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> >>
>> >> Ah right. I agree that it could be more visible - but I'm not sure how
>> >> many users would use something like that. You have to balance features
>> >> with "How many users are actually going to use this thing?"
>> >>
>> >> Cheers,
>> >> James Gifford
>> >> http://jamesrgifford.com
>> >>
>> >> On 05/02/2011 06:01 PM, Niklas Rosenqvist wrote:
>> >> > I know, that's why I said: "we have the 'applications'-lens which is
>> >> > good but it can't give a description of any of the games or meta
>> >> > information as: 'last played' or '10 hours of total game time'".
>> >> >
>> >> > Also sorry about mentioning Desura, I just realised it hasn't been
>> >> > released yet. All the talk about Project Bossanova these days got me
>> >> > fooled :)
>> >> >
>> >> > On 02/05/11 23:51, James Gifford wrote:
>> >> >> There is already a way to do this - it's hidden, but it's there [1]
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Cheers,
>> >> >> James Gifford
>> >> >> http://jamesrgifford.com
>> >> >>
>> >> >> [1] http://lts.cr/arr
>> >> >>
>> >> >> On 05/02/2011 05:05 PM, Niklas Rosenqvist wrote:
>> >> >>> Wouldn't it be sweet to be able to gather up all games into a
>> >> >>> "games"-application, similar to the one used for system settings or
>> >> >>> the
>> >> >>> games folder in windows vista/7? Since the traditional gnome menu
>> >> >>> is
>> >> >>> gone we need a new way to gather up games, we have the
>> >> >>> "applications"-lens which is good but it can't give a description
>> >> >>> of
>> >> >>> any
>> >> >>> of the games or meta information as: "last played" or "10 hours of
>> >> >>> total
>> >> >>> game time". Think of it as a mini-Desura or mini-Steam client.
>> >> >>> Without
>> >> >>> all the extra bling and functions. Just a simple way to organise
>> >> >>> games
>> >> >>> which can be set as a launcher, which also supports a quick list
>> >> >>> for
>> >> >>> recently played games.
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>> How about it? Couldn't that be a great addition to the Unity shell?
>> >> >>> This
>> >> >>> would also encourage gaming on Linux platforms and hopefully also
>> >> >>> developers to start providing Linux-clients.
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>> (Ubuntu should also try to include more games into it's
>> >> >>> repositories
>> >> >>> to
>> >> >>> encourage gaming on ubuntu, games like Minecraft which is hugely
>> >> >>> popular
>> >> >>> should definitely be there as well as Desura)
>> >> >>>
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>> >> >
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>> >
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>> >
>
>
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