Calling to action: Expand on GTA IV's LAN Multiplayer

[Fierelier]

I'm calling for a proper IV vanilla multiplayer re-implementation. I'm sick of closed source clients/servers like GTA Connected and CitizenMP:IV Reloaded (the original CitizenMP was open source). I'd prefer if you'd stop pushing out closed sourced mods in general, no matter what your rationale is. I respect your right to publish the mod as you see fit, but it would be so much better if your knowledge were available to everyone so the community can strive as a whole.

 

Anyways, back on topic. From what I gathered, GTA IV's multiplayer is entirely peer to peer. There is two types of multiplayer in the vanilla game: Online and LAN. I will go over both of them, and go through their issues. If I missed something, let me know.

Online
You use an XBOX account through GFWL, there seems to be some sort of master server keeping track of lobbies, or at the very least client IPs. This type of play requires an XBOX account and a GFWL game key. The problem is that XBOX integration of GFWL is not guaranteed to last. Microsoft just needs to change their XBOX login API, and that's it: Online is dead. It is also a huge pain to keep feeding GFWL new keys, if you don't have one, which with the current Rockstar Launcher release, is very well possible. I don't think we should rely on this to keep functioning.

LAN

You can use either an XBOX account, or an offline account through GFWL to play LAN. So this already eliminates the need for XBOX. If you want to play online via this method, you require a virtual network, which can be gotten through ZeroTier, which is open source. You then only need to tell GFWL to use that network device, which you can do through a registry entry. However, an issue is that the ping is limited to, reportedly, 30ms. This is so we cannot use this mode for online play. This can be circumvented by using a tool called TeknoGods, which unlocks the maximum ping, however, the issue is that it seems to be unstable on some setups and the game can crash. Also, the tool is closed source.

 

I think this is what we need to be focusing our attention on.

Why I think LAN should be fixed

LAN is already close to being the "end-all" for multiplayer problems, only little would need to be done to have it be a really viable option. The main issue that needs to be solved is the ping limitation, then it would already be workable. From there, perhaps a way to directly connect to an IP could be developed, which could potentially eliminate the need for a private network like ZeroTier (if all clients are capable of opening ports [i'm not, sob]), it may even eliminate the need for GFWL entirely.

 

I think this is the best route for quick payoff, good play and independence. I just wish someone would recognize the potential and express interest.

Edited October 25, 2020 by Fierelier

[B Dawg]

CitizenIV is actually open source. It's the only reason it's still up, albeit the current maintainer of the project didn't open source his changes to it:

https://tohjo.eu/ntauthority/citizenmp

[Fierelier]

Thank you, I will update my main post accordingly.

[KlikWeird]

Xlivelessness Lan Multiplayer Won't need Teknogods

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