Hi all, my first post here! :D

I decided to check through the EULA for XNA Game Studio 3.1 just now and I noticed something;

Under section iv of the EULA it states that "You may not use the software to develop commercial programs that connect to Games for Windows LIVE"

Does this mean that if my small three-man team and I were to develop a game that DID use the framework to connect to GFWL, but it was to be distributed as freeware, that we would be allowed to do such?

Could someone please clarify this issue for us.
--Morgan

hipolipolopigus:

Does this mean that if my small three-man team and I were to develop a game that DID use the framework to connect to GFWL, but it was to be distributed as freeware, that we would be allowed to do such?

I'm not 100% sure on the EULA, but I can tell you that the XNA Redist does not include the GFWL bits, so EULA aside, it is technically impossible (without breaking some other EULA for redistributing DLLs you aren't allowed to redistribute) to distribute a game that utilizes GFWL. If you are making a game for Windows, you should not be using GFWL.

Thanks for the swift reply, Nick.

I suppose we should use something along the lines of System.Net or Lidgren, then?

But honestly, not being able to make games for LIVE using GFWL sort of defeats the point of it, yes?

Thanks
--Morgan

The point of GFWL is that it's a managed system where Microsoft vouches for the quality. For that to be true, Microsoft needs to sign off on the binaries that actually connect to GFWL. Because the PC is not as closed a system as the Xbox, just saying "you can connect if you use XNA" is not good enough, because there are many ways around that on PC.

Ah. Thanks for that, Jwatte.

In this case, could anyone recomend a networking library that could be used like GFWL? The sign-in GUI and such, that is relatively simple to use (as we only have until September 24th to finish our project).

Cheers,
--Morgan

Why do you need a sign-in GUI? I would go with Lidgren.

I'm not to sure about how to do a similar things with Lidgren, but the GFWL system's Gamer.Tag (Easy to assign each player a 'unit') and GamerTag(easy to identify players by their gamertag) were an integral part of our code. The sign-in GUI was simply for the GamerTag property, which hovered above the gamer's 'unit'.

Any ideas on how to do a similar thing with Lidgren?

Yes, this is sort of getting off track. Not so much Game Publishing/Business now.

Why not just create your own classes that provide the same functionality?

"Tag" is not distributed, so that would be easy to replicate:

class MyGamer
{
  public object Tag;
}

:-)

"GamerTag" is simply the name of the gamer; any system you build with name and password will be able to provide that.

The biggest problem when using a library, instead of a service, is that you don't get matchmaking for free.

Great!

Thanks a lot, everyone! My next post: Gravity on a heightmap >.<