Cleaning up my projects and backup folders, I found out the first draft from the DP Client I wanted to build. This is dated Nov 2009…
There are many things I wanted to do and some were finished:
- No irc needed anymore
- Each room had own chat for organizing game
- Client would automatically include all hosting software and commands (back then we used LC, so each client would ping each other to detect best host)
- Clan tags included, easy friends adding
- People would know before they add the spot they will have, teams can be done before game is even ready or automatically by xp balance
- You can banrequest, see bans and manage them directly from client
- After each game, replay is automatically uploaded to server and can be browsed by others or used in a banrequest
- Maphack detection. I worked at a function that scans for known maphacks while this program runs. It kinda worked 
This program can be easily adapted for today’s situation: instead of LC hosting, you have a list of bots and their availability. It would be even easier since you don’t need separate program for hosting, you just send some commands to another server.
DP should continue my idea of having a single program doing everything and leaving forums just for talks:
- Registration should be done from program (like ZeTool did). Keys would be reused to configure GProxy also.
- Everything you see in that picture, but updated for bots instead of LC
- When user starts the game, gproxy is automatically started and configured
- Program uses the same username/password from forums to login. No more need for irc, qauths, bla bla bla.
- You can basically do anything while the program runs: scan for maphacks, read game statistics, etc
- Handle bans, unbans, new users directly from the interface. Both from user and admin point of view
- Tons of more possibilities…
Without the limit of irc, you can do anything you want. Game creation can be as complex or easy as you need. Users can have avatars, flags, hero picking while adding, team statistics, ratings, active games list, automatically logged chats on server, charts with user evolution and statistics. Most importantly: easy of use and a platform that can attract new users faster. Without stupid forum accounts, forum key, quakenet registration, irc proxies, hidden hosts, bla bla bla. User has only normal account + cd key. That’s it.
This is year 2011. Irc was invented in 1988… I think it’s time to move forward. While platforms like Garena have tremendous success, it still lacks organization and what we provided to users: nice games with mannered people and a good community in general. My example is an old interface with not so nice technology visually. But today it can be done with modern libraries like WPF or even web based as Silverlight / Flash.
The only problem is DP dying in 2010 = less and less people and especially less and less programmers who have time to invest for this kind of projects. At the current rate, DP is not going ascending in 2011. It’s still going down at even faster rate. Innovation = 0, interest = 0. Focusing on stupid forums bans all over the place and whole admin crew winning the inactivity award of the century turned this place into a place where only few hundred players are active and dropping fast. In 2009 there were like 5000+ active users.
Evolution is simple: adapt or die. Slowly.
