Open Source Halo Dedicated Server

Hello everyone,

I am hesitant to post this here based on mixed feelings about the expansion and continued development on Halo: Combat Evolved, but truly believe this needs to be posted, so Im going to try to convince some of the nay sayers here that this is worthwhile.

We (Myself, Sean Aero, and Btc22) have been discussing viable alternatives to help breathe new life into this old game and its community.

One of the suggestions was of course an open source alternative to the halo dedicated server, now it doesnt sound very exciting at first glance, as its only a server right?..

Wrong, the server is the key component to online play and competition and is the fundamental part of the halo community, and we believe it plays a crucial role, not only to players, but to administrators and commercial server hosts alike.

To save me having to copy/paste, more details are located here

Now its starting to look like something worthwhile, not only does this give developers chance to experiment with online play in halo more than they used to, but it gives us a chance to create new experiences, add new features, the ability to customize your server more than you ever could before, to suit your personal tastes and those that play on your server.

Now as with a project of this scale, it requires a huge amount of time and effort, and will require people of exceptional skill and motivation in order to make this happen.

If you are believe you will be beneficial for this project, please read this, or have some feedback you can post here, or post on the project forums (will be there more often).

I would like to point out that we are very serious about this project. We know that the amount of work is probably going to be insane, but we have the time, no need to rush things. We are pro-active and are looking for people that have a certain amount of programming skill and/or knowledge on programming with Halo ( we know your out there :cop: ).

If you think you can contribute in anyway, hence it's open source for a reason, feel free to leave a reply and have a chat!

There was a server app for CE 1.08 called SAPP, it did a lot of the things you are talking about implementing, I'm not sure if the author is still around, but it's worth checking out.

Also MOTD's are client side, or atleast the coding to support them, and CE contains that, of course you could do server chat that gets posted on player joining, but I'm pretty sure that's CE only as well.

Anyway good luck with your project.

Yeah Sean pointed it out to me (http://xhalo.co.cc)

To my knowledge it works using dll injection, has a couple of bugs but nothing major, hasnt been updated in a couple of months, and is for CE only I believe.

Since its closed source, there isnt a lot you can expand on, the features are great, but it isnt as expandable as a fully open implementation that you can edit and create custom events for.

As for the MOTD, there are multiple ways of sending server messages, even if its something like sv_say, or even using the chat system. (as you said, send chat messages to a single player upon connection)

Think of the bigger picture, we are not bound by the constraints of the server (well, to a degree), but more so by the client, which allows us to experiment with what we can do, and make use of it.

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Originally Posted by Craig

Now its starting to look like something worthwhile, not only does this give developers chance to experiment with online play in halo more than they used to, but it gives us a chance to create new experiences, add new features, the ability to customize your server more than you ever could before, to suit your personal tastes and those that play on your server.

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How exactly do you plan to make the Halo clients accept these new features? Do you plan on programming a new Halo client too, because it's not going to happen by magic.

I don't see this going anywhere, your Halo PC Remake project seems to have failed considering the fact you are moving onto this project.

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Originally Posted by Craig

Think of the bigger picture, we are not bound by the constraints of the server (well, to a degree), but more so by the client, which allows us to experiment with what we can do, and make use of it.

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You are extremely bound to the constraints of an unmodified client. There is only so much you can do without modifying the client to accept new features.

Wouldn't it be easier to add these features as an extension of the existing dedicated server? (like through some app or hook)

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Originally Posted by ShadowSpartan

How exactly do you plan to make the Halo clients accept these new features? Do you plan on programming a new Halo client too, because it's not going to happen by magic.

I don't see this going anywhere, your Halo PC Remake project seems to have failed considering the fact you are moving onto this project.


You are extremely bound to the constraints of an unmodified client. There is only so much you can do without modifying the client to accept new features.

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All of the features outlined are handled by the server, not the client. (basically the client doesnt know what its doing, just accepts them as normal)

This project and the halo remake go hand in hand (been postponed due to scale), this will most likely be a stepping stone.

You seem to think that we are working against the client, which is untrue. We are only including features that we know are possible for the client to accept it.

Give me an example of one feature that wont work, and I will gladly correct you.

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Originally Posted by Con

Wouldn't it be easier to add these features as an extension of the existing dedicated server? (like through some app or hook)

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We have looked at that option, and we are still debating, right now we are in a phase of analysing the problem, and finding the best solution.

Using a hook is a lot easier, as with the numerous applications that have made use of such a solution (HAC, SAPP, OS), but seems to be a very hacky way of doing things, and hosts are very much wary about using hooks, as it not only uses more resources, but is frowned upon and does not receive a lot of support.

And tbh, would you rather work on a half arsed attempt and complete it with hardly any difficulty at all, or if we create a server from the ground up and will be working on something challenging.

It gives us a good platform to work with, as well as allowing new projects to also make use of our work.

I don't know but it seems to me like you guys might as well look up some reverse engineering references and reverse-engineer the whole dedicated server thing.

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Originally Posted by Dwood

I don't know but it seems to me like you guys might as well look up some reverse engineering references and reverse-engineer the whole dedicated server thing.

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Of course we will need to reverse engineer certain parts of the dedicated server to understand how it handles data, but we will not make a 100% copy of the server (will be nearly impossible), but are trying to improve what gearbox originally did, and create as close to an official dedicated server as possible.

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Originally Posted by ShadowSpartan

You are extremely bound to the constraints of an unmodified client. There is only so much you can do without modifying the client to accept new features.

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I never said we were not constrained by the client, I stated that we will have to work with the existing features of the client, but expand the server. (read my post properly)

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Originally Posted by Craig

but seems to be a very hacky way of doing things

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What? Hacky way of doing things not I thinky. It calls a library; nothing hacky about it.

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Originally Posted by Craig

as it not only uses more resources

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It all depends on what you're going to be doing. Using .net requires much more resources and can cause more potential problems.

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Originally Posted by Craig

And tbh, would you rather work on a half arsed attempt and complete it with hardly any difficulty at all, or if we create a server from the ground up and will be working on something challenging.

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I would rather have a working server created by the game's makers with a simple modification to enable certain elements that would make it easier to use than to have a server created by someone asking for help on how Halo works.