Developers wanted

I'm looking for a Java developer to help me work on the GUI redesign, incorporating themes/images and moving the code base to JDK 1.5. If anyone with novice to intermediate skill would like to help email me (steven dot day at gmail dot com). I am not an expert java coder and I don't mind having anyone help who would like to use this as a learning experience and so on.

Other items that need work if anyone wants to pick up some of the code slack

- Throwing in all countries into Countries dropdown in preferences
- Displaying Country in chatroom list
- Wildcards on IP banning feature
- Moving gameroom list on main chat window
- Adding timestamp for last time logged in and last ip address in accounts file

I'll be working on these plus tons of other things. Hope to have the help.

Beta Release 1.13 GO GO GO!

Implementing NAT safe gaming was something I couldn't leave waiting for later. I decided to release 1.13 with this change and save the rest of the developments for 1.13a or 1.14. So everyone update and don't worry about opening any proxy ports UNLESS you want to host. You will not be able to host without forwarding your proxy port but now it will be less of a hassle.

NAT Safe games

Well it has been successfully tested and has been placed on CVS, I have given users the ability to play games through GTADS WITHOUT having the port forward. This will make a lot of people's lives easier, especially thouse who can't control their firewall or proxy. I am still testing this feature and am looking to see how much performance would change if at all. People who want to host will still need to forward their ports but this may make the experience much easier.

Other Items:

- Multiple Players under GTADS
- Voice Chat
- Stats

Unexpected Server outage

Rez was hit with a small power outage for about an hour today, I apologize for this as the circuit seems to have gotten overloaded. Looking to get a UPS for rez to keep it up and going if this happens again.

Playing on GTADS without port forwarding?

That's right, I thought it over and I think I will be implementing a NAT friendly proxy for GTADS players. This will allow users to only join games but anyone interested in hosting will still need to open their proxy port. While this isn't implemented yet I do warn that the in using 1 port traffic it is still recommended that you would open your proxy port for optimal game play. Users may experience a little extra lag against players who do not have their proxy port forwarded. I also wouldn't advice voice chat off of these sessions but some more testing will confirm how much performance is affected. This should be in development within a couple of days and featured in Release 1.13.

Client Interface Suggestions

I am looking for suggestions for the client interface. Tell me what you think should be implemented/fixed/improved on the GTADS client. You can email me these at steven dot day at gmail dot com or leave a comment on this page. A lot of things are happening behind the scenes to get more games and a better gameplay experience but I would like to know what the users think would make GTADS better and more usable in their opinions.

GTADS Video Issue and Voice Chat

Anyone who may have tried GTADS from the beginning may have run into a shitty bug that plagues the Java Virtual Machine. If you run the client then open GTA1 or Age of Empires the client may close out and crash inexplicably. I have filed a bug report with Sun to try to resolve the issue in a later release of their JRE. For now here is a quick and dirty workaround to opening the game sans the crashing. Before you open your game of choice Minimize all windows of GTADS. This is important, you must minimize the windows to avoid crashing, If you decide to alt-tab out of the game and go into GTADS switching back and forth won't affect it from that point on.

Also the codebase is getting its groundbreaking voice chat features implemented as of tonight. The change may be in the CVS repository later on in the week. There may be a lot of testing before this gets thrown into a new release.

And please if you know of a forum or a website that caters to a GTA1 or Age of Empires community, let them know about this project. Many people have come on and enjoyed it. If we can get more players we can make it even more enjoyable.

Beta Release 1.12: More additions

These days there seems to be a lot more development going into GTADS and with good reason. I added a few bug fixed and features to the 1.12 release for both the client and server. The gameroom now shows when a game has actually been started and when the game is finished. Also added some gameroom labels for Age of Empires: Rise of Rome, Age of Empires 2, etc. Check it out.

Accounts on GTADS Server rez.fastping.net

The accounts repository was accidentally over written while moving the server from 1.1 to 1.11. I managed to retrieve a local copy of the accounts file prior to the first time it was over written during the 1.0 release. If you may have had an account prior to 1.0 and have forgotten it, please let me know so that I may delete your account and let you recreate your login. I Apologize for the inconvenience.

AOE II Confirmed and GTADS for the future

Well as 1.11 made its release a few Age of Empire fans have come on and tried it out with successes. It is always good to get the interest of people for your software and in addition have feedback come in. Taking in the feedback I know what definitely needs to be done for Beta Release 1.12. Age of Empires II does work though there seems to be a proxy issue that doesn't allow the proxy to work properly after successfully playing a game. That will be fixed shortly but the main criticism is the complexity of setting a game up. I know when GTADS was first set up there was more function in mind than ease of use. Now that I can say the proxy definitely works on GTA and Age of Empires I think its time to revamp the interface on the proxy to make setting up a game more streamlined. If anyone has any suggestions on what should be done, don't hesistate to send an email that I will definitely consider it.

I am also looking to put up a complete website for this project and need help in setting one up. I don't have the time or effort to do it myself but I am looking for someone willing to help me out to set one up. The site would be hosted on http://gtads.sourceforge.net/.