[quake3-bugzilla] [Bug 4962] Protocol version 69 + legacy support

[bugzilla-daemon at icculus.org]

https://bugzilla.icculus.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4962

--- Comment #22 from Simon McVittie <smcv-ioquake3 at pseudorandom.co.uk> 2011-06-30 11:06:17 EDT ---
(In reply to comment #20)
> (In reply to comment #18)
> > It seems like the only reason
> > we're allowing "protocol" to be changed by the user is to allow ioq3 to be used
> > with OA? Is there a reason to allow "protocolver" to be changed as well?
> 
> Yes. It's not only OA... World of Padman uses the same mechanism to distinguish
> between game content. I am sure other mods do as well.

This means protocol needs to be changeable at the command-line; it doesn't
strictly require that  "new_protocol" can be changed too, if we can require
that standalone games provide their "game content identifier" in a different
way.

Perhaps we should just declare the protocol cvar to mean *only* what people use
it for in practice now - an artificial compatibility-breaker for standalone
games.

If this is the way to go, then we should make sure that when using Thilo's new
protocol, the protocol cvar (at least) is looked at to determine compatibility
(even though what we're actually going to talk is Thilo's new protocol, not
protocol 68); and that it's made obvious to standalone game developers that
they should *not* change newprotocol (or whatever it's called), even when
they're changing protocol.

> The getServersExt query does already differentiate between games.

Not between incompatible variants of a game, though - I believe OpenArena 0.7.7
and 0.8.x are both considered to be the same game, distinguished only by the
protocol cvar?

However smart the server browser is, in an ideal world we'd be able to get
something like this, even when the server browser isn't used:

    \connect arena.example.com

    Error: server not compatible with this game
    Server is Tremulous-2, protocol 68
    This is Quake3-1, protocol 68

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