Hi guys,
Here are some of our ideas for Steam features we would like to implement into the game. Not necessarily in the order of implementation, nothing is set in stone yet. Some of the work is migrating existing features over to Steam, most are new things.
I'll keep this thread updated as we start working on and releasing these additions. Feel free to discuss them in the Steamworks Integration Announcement thread.
Leaderboards, ghosts and events(reimplementation task)
Migrate leaderboards and ghosts over to Steam-based implementation. This could be split into two main subtasks:
1. Move ghosts storage to Steam cloud. Currently we use a dedicated storage server which also hosts the dedicated multiplayer server. We store only top 25 ghosts per leaderboard, so they are useful only to the better drivers. Steam cloud can store up to 1GB data per user, so we should be easily able to store everyone's ghost there.
2. Reimplement leaderboards using Steam. Steam supports up to 10000 leaderboards of unlimited length per title, each leaderboard can have one entry per user, with 64 integers of arbitrary metadata and one cloud-stored file attached to each leaderboard entry. Currently we have 39 vehicles and 57 tracks, which is 2223 leaderboards. Migrating leaderboards over to Steam would greatly simplify management of ghosts stored in Steam Cloud, but it could complicate implementation of weekly events and potential user-generated events. We are researching our options here.
Multiplayer and dedicated servers(reimplementation + new features task)
Multiplayer uses our own implementation of peer to peer networking, with dedicated server used for session management (list of players in a game, game's settings) and rebroadcasting of network packets where p2p connections fail or when the sessions are too large for peer to peer communication.
We'd like to use Steam's networking because their peer to peer implementation is much more robust than what we have coded so far. We'd also like to move the session management logic from our dedicated server to Steam's lobby system. This would allow us to integrate better with Steam: See what multiplayer games your friends are in, join them via Steam UI, invite friends to multiplayer games.
Another large benefit is that we would be able to run "small" multiplayer races without any dedicated server at all. Our estimate is that up to 12 players, maybe more, could easily play with peer to peer networking only. This means no reliance on enough dedicated servers running and being available when you want to play, and also better pings, no rebroadcasting via dedicated servers.
We would still support dedicated servers, simplified down to rebroadcasters for large games. We'd probably host few, and let the community host the rest, which was the original plan ; but smaller games would not "consume" any dedicated server resources.
Ranking/leagues and matchmaking(new feature, requires detailed design and Steam-based multiplayer)
It looks like the target audience of pCARS is quite competitive, so it would be very nice to have some kind of well-designed ranking system, with visible ladders/leagues/ranks. And ranked matchmaking to compete on the ladder. Mike has quite a lot of player experience with competitive racing games, so he would probably be in charge of this if we decided to implement ranking.
Just a simple hidden matchmaking rating used to match players together, updated by the clients themselves, would be possible to implement using what Steam offers. Anything more complicated (visible ladders or leagues) would probably require a custom server to handle the ladders ; matchmaking and multiplayer would still be fully Steam-based.
Profile stored on Steam CloudUsing Steam Cloud to store the profile online and share it between multiple computers would be pretty easy to implement. For this to work well we would probably first have to:
Deleting old/incompatible profile in Steam builds. If we decide to implement custom launcher it could be responsible for this task.
Split profile into two parts - one that should be shared via Steam cloud and another that's relevant only locally. Audio/video settings should be local, control settings I am not sure about. I believe settings are already stored separately? But I am not sure.
Online profile statsSteam stats can be used to push some parts of the profile to Steam stats server. The stats can be queried by the WebAPI which can be used to build custom web pages or mobile applications displaying the stats. In the past it was also possible to have such web done as a page on the Steam Community, when coordinated with Valve. I am not sure if that's still an option, the documentation does not mention it explicitly. I am asking Valve about the details. If it's still possible , it can look like this:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7...ller?tab=statsLooking at the WebAPI it should also be possible to write to the stats from an external application. Using this feature to allow players to customize their profile via web or mobile app would need to be designed and tested very carefully. It possibly does not play very nice when modifying the stats from an external app while the game is running. Deciding whether an online stat should override the profile or vice versa can also be tricky in some scenarios.
AchievementsSteam support for achievements is very straightforward, with few calls to unlock achievements. There is also API to display progress of achievements of type "do something N times", or tie the progress to a Steam Stat which then unlocks the achievement automatically.
So this is mostly design, app and art task - designing fun and reasonably challenging achievements is quite hard, then app-side achievement detection logic needs to be implemented.
User generated content sharing (Steam Workshop)This is a big topic. Sharing some content like screenshots is something Steam does on its own, sharing custom liveries via Steam Workshop would be a medium-sized task, curated Workshop with microtransactions much bigger task and it would need more detailed design.
Sharing screenshots and videos as well as discussions/forums are handled by Steam Community. There is no need for us to do anything to support this, apart from the game working correctly with the Steam overlay active. Alternatively, the native Steam's "take screenshot" function can be disabled and replaced by a Steam callback, the game is then responsible for grabbing the screenshot data and passing them to Steam. This could be to automatically hide control hints etc while grabbing the data.
Other user generated content must be handled by the game. Steam offers two "layers" of APIs for this.
The first layer is the Steam Cloud. The game can write and them upload any files to the user's Steam Cloud. Uploading a file to the cloud returns unique handle that's valid until the file is removed from the cloud by the user. Sharing this handle with other players allows them to download the file and read its data, then use them in any way the game wants. One simple way to share Steam Cloud files is attaching them to leaderboard entries - this would be used for ghosts.
Steam Workshop can be used to share files uploaded to Steam Cloud with other players in more comfortable manner. For example, to share liveries we would provide a simple tool to upload livery images to Steam Workshop, then anyone else could download and use them ingame. For an example how the workshop looks, you can check Portal 2 Workshop. "Subscribing" to a Steam Workshop item downloads it to your computer, and notifies the game about the new item ; the livery would then appear in your vehicle customization options. Displaying custom liveries in multiplayer will then be also possible, because everyone will know the image's Steam Cloud id and download it while loading into the race.
Custom liveries are just a basic example of what kind of user-generated content we might support. Depending on time and scheduling, we might be able to let players customize/mod/share much more than that.
Steam Workshop also supports curated items - items that are not directly available to players, but they can vote on them and SMS can choose which user-generated items to include in the game. Optionally these items could be then added to the game's microtransaction shop, with their authors receiving share from the item's sales. This is much more advanced task to implement and support than a basic livery sharing, but something we could potentially put in.
Clans/teamsThe only group support Steam implements is the groups you can create and join in the Steam Client, such as the Unofficial Project CARS Steam group. Apart from querying group membership, there is no easy way to use those groups for any game-related features. We have no control over what groups players create and join, we have no way to distinguish "cars team" groups from the rest, there is no easy way to track aggregate stats of group members or store group-specific stats from the game.
This means that anything related to teams/clans would have to use our own implementation and be hosted on our own servers.
Trading cardsThis is a new Steam thing, and so far quite popular. For details see this Valve's article:
http://steamcommunity.com/tradingcards/
![[boing]](/images/smilies/nuevos/pelota_ani1.gif "pelota")
yo con el iphone y movistar me tengo bajado juegos por torrent pero ahora que estoy en vodafone cuando me paso de los 200mb me traen los kb/s en diligencia
por cierto el pagani huayra hacia mucho que no lo probaba y me gusta mas ahora.
![[beer]](/images/smilies/nuevos2/brindando.gif "brindis")
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![[qmparto]](/images/smilies/net_quemeparto.gif "Que me parto!")
![[poraki]](/images/smilies/nuevos/dedos.gif "por aquí!")
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)![[+risas]](/images/smilies/nuevos/risa_ani3.gif "más risas")
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