Additional BotNet Features Discussion

[tA-Kane]

Please post your comments on these notes regarding BotNet:

1) A new "gateway/realm" parameter will be added to the bot status packets, either as a string or an enumeration.

2) If the gateway/realm field is added as an enumeration, it is likely that the string equivelants of the enumeration will be added to a gateway/realm enumeration list packet. This will allow for bots to select the correct value, even if they change (or are added to). Blizzard's current realms' enumerations will be static.

3) It has become apparent that fields in the bot status packets that are sent needlessly (sent when that parameter did not change, yet a different one did). As such, Kp wishes to introduce a "modified flags" field in the bot stats packets which specifies which fields exist in the packets.

4) Kp will be adding the string length limits to the botnet specification next time he modifies his specification, currently available from either of these sources:
http://www.valhallalegends.com/kp/kpbnproto030311.txt
http://kbg3.ath.cx/misc/kpbnproto030311.txt

5) The string length limits will be based on Battle.net's limits, and not on any server emulators' limits.

[Kp]

3) It has become apparent that fields in the bot status packets that are sent needlessly (sent when that parameter did not change, yet a different one did). As such, Kp wishes to introduce a "modified flags" field in the bot stats packets which specifies which fields exist in the packets.

This would be in the form of a new update message, where the client specifies which fields have changed and includes only those.  The old status update message would continue to work (and expect all fields) as it always has.

[Kp]

When I want to differentiate between 2 users with the same name, I just look at their server IPs. So what is the point of a gateway parameter?

For your 3rd option, I agree with you. It is inefficient to send all the stat information when most of the time is it only the current channel name that is changing.

Warcraft 3 users' names are mangled by the server, so a war3 user connected to uswest and asserting a name of Maddox would really be Maddox@Lordaeron to everyone else.  The gateway field allows it to specify that it is @Lordaeron instead of @USWest.  Also, Kane apparently requires a gateway parameter because his bot can't figure out what IP it is connected to, and so usually just says it is on server -1. :p