Great news, Valve has released a preliminary Software Development Kit for the Source engine!
So what does this mean for SM Development? Well, nothing since there is no interface code yet ;] But I'd like to relay some public information so we can get some feedback.
During the downtime from public announcement to now, we've made some important considerations for SourceMod. We've decided on some aspects to greatly improve administration over AMX Mod X:
- Administration will be Role based, not User based. This means you can easily administer multiple servers and admins will never have to hardcore access levels in plugins.
- No flat-file configuration. Aside from the base configuration file, things like admins, plugins, and module configuration will be done over a GUI (currently we're working on a web one, and maybe a client one in the future). Everything will be stored in either a tiny internal DB implementation or MySQL (for multiple servers). This will make administration very easy. Furthermore, configuration is an API - so any client can be made to configure SourceMod from either an rcon-like protocol or from a plugin/module. The web application will be able to run from your own webserver or a tiny built-in daemon.
- Threading. As the idea of spawning a webserver/daemon is scary to most server administrators - both the configuration API and all socket code will be threaded to not interfere with gameplay.
- MetaEng. SourceMod will feature an SDK for developing modules, adding scripting languages, and making plugins.
- Pluggable Authentication. The actual authentication methods will be scriptable so clans/multiple server set-ups can experiment with different ways of managing users.
So when can you expect a release? Well, we'll continually throw up news about milestones, but the SDK just came out. Over the next few weeks we'll post about progress, positions, and releases of screenshots/betas.
In the meantime, if you are a good lowlevel C or C++ coder, we'd love to have you on the team! Simply PM BAILOPAN with some of your history/credentials.
Feel free to post your opinions/suggestions on the above ideas below.