World map with players

[wurst]

je, the information is in that way not correct as u just see the providers firm address, not the users addres.
in some cases its complete nonsens (like with the gameservers IPs)
the machines are in frankfurt, the providers firma is in chemnitz (350 KM apart)
the whole serverfarm gets located to there in most applications.

to archive the match i can see btw 3 Ways:

1.) use a text file DB (delivered with XLR Stats2)
2.) use a third party websites api (theres this one in XLR2 example...)
3.) do it ourselfes and check/locate from whats written in IP registrars infos (ripe.net for example)

i would prefer 2.) btw.
information is most precise, anyways it should be our first try.

an an important question left:
when to execute localisation?
on stats page generation (from the webserver)
or better on player connect (from the gameserver)

@unclefragger and this "freeware discussion"

we push the client to install some thats not free and thats able to execute code on his comp. thats bad side #1
bad side #2 is that the worldmap file itself isnt open sourced. it could be, even in flash. free use for hobbyists but no modification.

btw. we could use flags instead, we could print country names, distances and forget about the nice candy map.

[Unclefragger]

well geoip is pretty accurate when it comes to countries, but isn't as good if you want to check any closer then that.
I don't like user executed code as well, and you could get this map server generated as well. Flags is an issue as well I know from the mumble project that they didn't find any open svg images. There appear to be others though.

[wurst]

je sure the info is not accurate ok.
but anyways do it?
could be nice to have some "this m8 is 50/500/5000 km away from you"
we dont have to be like that porn sites where the boobs tell me allways that theres hot girls in herne (mine provider is from there...)

[SanHolo]

How about using Google Maps to display the locations? I'm not really a Flash-Fan, and Google Maps should be familiar to everyone.

[AimMe]

Ye, i can see my house with google maps They rock.

[Samtron]

Are the geoip information really so inaccurate? Perhaps it's not always the right city, but I'd like to see from which part of a country someone comes...

[wurst]

you see his provider, the isp registered with a complete firm address for sure.
he could give now your address but he wont be allowed exept law force him to.

the other thing is that the connection might be proxied.
thats generally more difficult for udp then for tcp since such a proxy would simply be called "a router"
but sure theres vpn, anonymizers offer "remote nat router" worldwide.

whatever, as far as i can see it the country get allmost allways correctly shown.
i guess the inaccuracy for 50-200 Km, in most cases the city is correct.
specially in non-mass providers/big enterprises with own subnet, the resolution quality is better.

ah if we use db, we could set ourselfes to a correct place and lock from updates...