Change Log (Game Server)

The Game Server library has undergone many changes over the years. Below is a list of the changes for each release.

2010-05-25

• Fixed recursive loop when an IOException occurs in BC2
• Fixed rules queries in Left 4 Dead 1 and 2

2010-04-24

• Added support for player lists in Battlefield: Bad Company 2
• Fixed a bug where UDP-based server readers would never stop until the JVM was terminated. They now stop when all of the UDP-based servers are close()ed.
• Fixed an issue converting null values to JDOM

2010-03-23

• Redesigned the XML conversion to be a separate class, and deprecated the JDOM methods in the GameServer-based classes. Eventually we will be able to remove these classes and make JDOM an optional library, saving space for those who don't want XML. To help decouple the XML, the toString() method now only returns the server title, and the getDocument() method has been removed to prevent recursion. If you're using XML, you'll need to call JDOM.toJDOM() and include Apache Commons Beanutils and Logging in your classpath.
• Similarly redesigned the JSON support as JSON.toJSON(). Right now, this decoupling doesn't save much, because we include the entire JSON library. In the future, we might provide JSON support as a separate jar file instead.
• Added detection for stale connections in Bad Company 2
• Changed Bad Company 2 support to rebuilt the connection and retry before giving up on sending a query
• Split out game and query port for Bad Company 2
• Started adding logging statements. These will log through Apache Commons Logging, so they will be routed to your chosen log facility.
• Updated the JSON library to the latest

2010-03-17

• Added OrangeBoxServer to support servers running Orange Box (AOC, TF2, DoDS, etc.)
• Renamed BattlefieldBadCompany2 to BattlefieldBadCompany2Server

2010-03-15

• Added support for Battlefield: Bad Company 2
• Fixed null pointer exceptions
• Fixed potential class cast exception in Left 4 Dead
• Fixed buffer underrun when querying a TF2 server for rules
• Upgraded included Ant library to 1.8.0

2009-10-06

• Workaround Valve's Left 4 Dead bugs introduced circa September 29

2009-08-30

• Renamed UnrealTournamentServer to UnrealEngine1Server to emphasize that it works on all the engine games.
• Added support for Unreal Engine 2, which includes UT2003, UT2004, Killing Floor, and more.

2009-05-02

• Added support to output JSON instead of XML.
• Changed the backing for the servers from JDOM to regular properties with getters. Requesting XML will now generate it on the fly.
• Added master server support for whitelisted ("white") servers or empty ("noplayers") servers.
• Changed the server lists to try a different master server if the first one fails.
• Fixed the Game-Monitor.com parser not updating players correctly.
• Updated Game-Monitor.com URL

2009-01-26

• Removed unneeded threading in Base
• Added support for \napp (excluding application IDs)

2008-11-26

• Removed use of Password class and dependency on BarkerJr's Utilities library.
• Updated Gold Source server support for the latest changes to the Gold Source protocol.
• Fixed errors when parsing Source server names with binary data in it.
• Added support for fetching the entire server list, not just the first 230.

2008-02-03

• Added support for sending rcon commands to Valve servers, after providing a password
• Upgraded licensing to GPLv3
• Added support for fetching a Source server list from the Valve master servers. It is recommended that the dnsjava library be included in your classpath if your DNS server is slow.
• Added hashcode() and equals() to the servers to support HashMaps/HashSets
• Added namespaces for easier merging with other documents
• Fixed a NullPointerException in the Game-Monitor plugin.
• Moved BZip2 support into the jar, eliminating the ant.jar requirement
• Removed the requirement on Apache Commons Lang

2007-12-30

• Added support for ServerSpy querying
• Fixed an issue where the GameMonitor plugin wasn't caching
• Added support for BZip2-compressed messages. These are common with some Source mods. This means that rules are now supported in Source servers.
• Changed load*(int*) to to throw a RequestTimeoutException, which includes a list of requests which failed to load, instead of a TimeoutException.
• Fixed the plugins so they provide accurate hashcodes and won't be duplicated in the server.

2007-11-28

• Challenge keys now expire after 60 seconds. Since the Valve servers can only remember the last 1024 challenges, it's important to expire challenges in long-lived GameServer instances. Once expired, the instance requests a new challenge the next time it needs one.
• Valve servers no longer clear player names when the maps change. While players are reconnecting, the server sends back their names as "". We can pretty safely assume that the player names remain the same, and don't overwrite them with "" anymore.
• Basic plugin support has been added. Plugins are classes which are injected into the GameServer instance and handle events like onLoad(). They can, of course, add listeners to the instance if they need to handle standard events.
• Support for Game-Monitor.com information has been added as a plugin. It returns historical and ranking information about the server. The nifty thing about using this plugin is that it will also return basic (Name, Max Players, etc) data about your server, even if your server fails to respond to the query. The catch is that the server has to be a Premium Server, which is a pay-service from Game-Monitor.com.

2007-11-18

• Apache Commons Lang 2.2 is now required, rather than 2.0.
• The load() method now throws InterruptedException. This is only thrown if something external to the library interrupts the method's thread. In any case, you will need to catch and/or throw the exception in your code. At the same time, the load*(int) methods in the Valve servers have been deprecated, rather than adding the exception.
• Added support for Unreal Tournament and Battlefield 1942
• Added a getInstance() method to each server. This method can be used to retrieve any server which has not yet had close() called on it. If the server was not open or has been closed, it is created new.
• Data sent and received to and from the servers are now treated as UTF-8, rather than ASCII, to support other character sets.

2007-11-10

• Times are now displayed in local time of the server, rather than UTC. This should make them considerably easier to read. If you need to keep them in UTC, change the server or JVM time-zone to UTC.
• Constructors now accept InetSocketAddress, which contains IP or hostname and port. The constructors for String and InetAddress have been deprecated.
• In order move the asynchronous complexities into the library, the plethora of load*() methods have been augmented by a load() method which accepts a variable number of Request enums, and queries them all asynchronously. Along the same theme, the Listener has been updated to add loaded() and updated() methods which pass in the Request enum which has changed. The sample code has been merged into one, using the new methods, however none of the existing methods have been deprecated.
• In order to minimize use of finite host resources, all of the servers now share a single local UDP port, and therefor a single thread devoted to listening to it. The close() method on the game servers is still important, however, as the UDP port and its thread will only be terminated once all of the servers are closed.