I would like to make a progam in VB that can open up a game (like Quake), go into netplay then enter a specified IP address for a IP to IP connection with out any user involvement. Does anyone know if this can be accomplished, and if so how?

quake and most games based on the quake engine can be commanded through the commandlineparameter, just exec it with "quake3.exe connect www.foo.bar" where www.foo.bar is the ip where it has to connect (i think the port is then added like this: "127.0.0.1ort" , where 127.0.0.1 is the localhost= just an ip...)
and executing an app out of vb should be no problem?!?


edit: smilekiller (i hope it kills the smiley :D)
edit2: arghh :D...



T2k

[edited by - T2k on January 4, 2004 5:17:20 PM]

[edited by - T2k on January 4, 2004 5:17:55 PM]

What if a game doesn't have a command line? (Maybe Quake was a bad example)

[edited by - MarcMassacre on January 4, 2004 5:19:03 PM]

it has to have :D, otherwhise you will get many problems trying to do it, imagine you do it through replaying some keystrokes or mouse movements to simulate what the user whould do (dont ask how todo it in vb :D i dont know how), it can happen that the computer starts to lag in some way and your ''script'' is no longer able to complete its task, it will then reformat your harddisk or it does something the user doesnt want, and it will stop somewhere in the app. What about a different resolution or a new mod where the controlls are placed in a different order or somewhere else, it would fail, just ignore games that dont have commandline params...

gamespy and co actually do it through commandline params, so there are not many games that dont have cmdlineparams (or at least i dont know any game that is multiplayer capable and has no commandline)...


T2k

A lot of sport games don''t have command lines, such as Madden.....

What Quake does (I''m guessing a little here) is connects to a known server which keeps a record of other servers running and can provide you with the connection information you need.

If you don''t have the inclination or resources to run a server like that you need to do some kind of service discovery or broadcasting. It''d only work on the same subnet (so on a LAN), but it''s a possibility. Sorry I don''t have any details, but I can''t be arsed to dig out my networking notes . . .